Hosting a server at home?!

[Merle_Haggard]

So we're supposed to be getting Google fiber next year, and I'll be the first in line when it comes to my neighborhood.  I was curious if I could buy a rig to use for hosting a server(s) and if it would be better/comparable to hosting companies.  Just bc I have fiber, does it necessarily mean that players would get good latency off of it?  Granted, this won't be for at least a year, maybe longer, but I was curious if anyone's ever tried dedicating a box to hosting games.

[Vanguard]

In 2005 we tried having a gS co-leader host a CS 1.6 public server from one of the first FiOS installations on the East Coast. The box was excellent at the time, but as fast as the connection was, it wasn't possible to sustain a decent server. It would function decently with literally 3 or 4 players in it, but once more players than that joined, everyone's pings would spike considerably and the server would crash after a half hour or so. That means we couldn't even use it for scrims. Also, since it was FiOS's infancy, they changed the terms of service a couple of months later to exclude server hosting. I know people have tried to host servers similarly, and when they were discovered by the ISP, the company throttled their connection (decreased the speed) as deterrence. I see that Google also states you cannot host servers on the connection in their terms of service (ToS) for Google Fiber: 

 

https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/2659981?hl=en&topic=2440874&ctx=topic

 

Can it physically be done? It can literally be started up, but as far as being sustained, who knows. Although, the quality and speed of fiber optic connections as well as the hardware has improved considerably since 2005.

 

Should you do it? I'd say don't even bother trying simply because it violates the ToS and I wouldn't want to risk them throttling or deactivating your connection. 

[Guest]

So we're supposed to be getting Google fiber next year, and I'll be the first in line when it comes to my neighborhood.  I was curious if I could buy a rig to use for hosting a server(s) and if it would be better/comparable to hosting companies.  Just bc I have fiber, does it necessarily mean that players would get good latency off of it?  Granted, this won't be for at least a year, maybe longer, but I was curious if anyone's ever tried dedicating a box to hosting games.

They will give you crazy down speeds, but probably not very high upload speeds.